Dusky Gopher Frogs are one of the most endangered frogs in the US, with possibly only around 100 animals surviving in the wild. Around 1,400 tadpoles were produced by Henry Doorly Zoo, using eggs collected from one of their female frogs, and sperm collected from males at Henry Doorly Zoo and from males at Memphis Zoo.

This is the first time that sperm has been collected from frogs at one zoo, transported to a second zoo, and used to successfully produce tadpoles. Hopefully, processes like this one will be used more often to bolster the numbers of endangered amphibians in captivity.

More information on this story is available on the Omaha.com web site.

Wildlife Conservation Society has been running an amphibian workshop here in Cali this week and I was asked to help with husbandry, enclosure design and hands on sections. It’s been a great several days here in Cali with 37 students from all over this amphibian rich country! The Cali Zoo is hosting us and providing a great space and staff to expose students to a lot of husbandry and veterinary techniques and ideas. There are many folks working already in ex situ and in situ programs here in Colombia and many shared their experiences with us on day one! More to come in a day or so.

Jennifer Pramuk, Curator at the Bronx Zoo, shares some info with students

Dr. Karen Lips and her team documented the association of disease and the massive decline of amphibians within a protected national park in El Cope, Panama in 2006 (Lips, K. R., Brem, F., Brenes, R., Reeve, J. D., Alford, R. A., Voyles, J., Carey, C., Livo, L., Pessier, A. P. & Collins, J. P. 2006. Emerging infectious disease and the loss of biodiversity in a Neotropical amphibian community. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 103:3165-3170.). Further findings just published by Andrew Crawford, Karen Lips and Eldredge Berminhama in PNAS have shown through DNA barcoding techniques that although 30 species are known to have disappeared from this study site, nearly a dozen more may have disappeared before they were even described to science!

Knowing that habitat loss is the number one threat to amphibians and thinking about how many species we KNOW are lost to habitat loss, it makes me think about how these new data may indicate that even more species lost via destruction of their homes is even higher than we know! Not only are species going missing faster than we discover new ones, the rate is much higher than I would have thought.

Researchers in Canada have found, for the first time ever, a photosynthetic symbionts in a vertebrate. A unicellular green alga,was found living INSIDE the cells of developing Spotted salamander embryos while still in the eggs! How these algae get inside vertebrate cells has not been determined. However, previous research showed that eggs that did not contain algae in the surrounding jelly mass were slower to develop than those which had algae present.
There are ways in which vertebrate cells eliminate foreign material and this discovery could help scientists explore what regulates this process.

Dr. Karen Lips and her team documented the association of disease and the massive decline of amphibians within a protected national park in El Cope, Panama in 2006 (Lips, K. R., Brem, F., Brenes, R., Reeve, J. D., Alford, R. A., Voyles, J., Carey, C., Livo, L., Pessier, A. P. & Collins, J. P. 2006. Emerging infectious disease and the loss of biodiversity in a Neotropical amphibian community. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 103:3165-3170.). Further findings just published by Andrew Crawford, Karen Lips and Eldredge Bermingham in PNAS have shown through DNA barcoding techniques that although 30 species are known to have disappeared from this study site, nearly a dozen more may have disappeared before they were even described to science!

Knowing that habitat loss is the number one threat to amphibians and thinking about how many species we KNOW are lost to habitat loss, it makes me think about how these new data may indicate that even more species lost via destruction of their homes is even higher than we know! Not only are species going missing faster than we discover new ones, the rate is much higher than I would have thought.

I recently had the great pleasure of visiting Gerardo Garcia, Jamie Topsey, Dan Lay and Charlotte Goble at Durrell. In addition to a having a fantastic facility there on the Isle of Jersey, these folks have put together really great programs in training and on-the-ground amphibian conservation. I’m going to try to post a few images here of their facilities. The Agile Frog, one of only 3 amphibian species on Jersey is down to very small numbers in the wild at one location. The Durrell folks have been collecting eggs and headstarting tadpoles and froglets for release for several years now into two locations and are seeing success! Check out my friend Gerardo Garcia here in this quick video from http://www.durrell.org/Home/Videos/Agile-frog-tadpole-releasing/ that details their work. It’s really great!

In addition to their work with Agile Frogs, Durrell is working with the Mountain Chicken (no, not a feathered kind!), another endangered frog (Leptodactylus fallax) from the caribbean. Last year there was a much publicized rescue of these frogs from the island of Montserrat. You can read more about this at this link:

I was able to put fit into some tyvek and enter their awesome biosecure facility where they are breeding this rare frog. Gerardo says they hope to return frogs to Montserrat by the end of the year to trial reintroductions in a safer place on the island.

Why This Blog?

Amphibians are our planet's canaries in the coal mine. They face the most significant mass extinction since the dinosaurs. The main reason they will disappear is because we will choose to allow it. You can be one of the people who stops it. Visit www.amphibianark.org. Learn. Donate. And tell others about it.